now pointed steadily to the point of loyalty. The guidance of that pole
star was to lead him to utter shipwreck. The unfortunate noble,
entrenched against all fear of Philip by the brazen wall of an easy
conscience; saw no fault in his past at which he should grow pale with
apprehension. Moreover, he was sanguine by nature, a Catholic in
religion, a royalist from habit and conviction. Henceforth he was
determined that his services to the crown should more than counterbalance
any idle speeches or insolent demonstrations of which he might have been
previously guilty.

Horn pursued a different course, but one which separated him also from
the Prince, while it led to the same fate which Egmont was blindly
pursuing.--The Admiral had committed no act of treason. On the contrary,
he had been doing his best, under most difficult circumstances, to avert
rebellion and save the interests of a most ungrateful sovereign. He was
now disposed to wrap himself in his virtue, to retreat from a court life,
for which he had never felt a vocation, and to resign all connection with
a government by which he felt himself very badly, treated. Moody,
wrathful, disappointed, ruined, and calumniated, he would no longer keep
terms with King or Duchess. He had griefs of long standing against the
whole of the royal family. He had never forgiven the Emperor for refusing
him, when young, the appointment of chamberlain. He had served Philip
long and faithfully, but he had never received a stiver of salary or
"merced," notwithstanding all his work as state councillor, as admiral,
as superintendent in Spain; while his younger brother had long been in
receipt of nine or ten thousand florins yearly. He had spent four hundred
thousand florins in the King's service; his estates were mortgaged to
their full value; he had been obliged to sell, his family plate. He had
done his best in Tourney to serve the Duchess, and he had averted the
"Sicilian vespers," which had been imminent at his arrival. He had saved